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Claire Ihnot Hayes is an Educational Consultant for Read Naturally who meets with educators nationwide to train them in Read Naturally programs. One of the most frequent questions Claire receives from educators is, “How can I adapt Read Naturally programs to meet the various needs of my students?” Older students, younger students, and ELL students have different needs and thus require different adjustments. We recently sat down with Claire to document her favorite tips for adapting Read Naturally Live to optimize success for a diverse body of students. These tips work for Encore students as well. Read more

Every year around this time, we like to remind teachers of the importance of checking their students’ initial Read Naturally placement. After the student completes three to six stories, you have more specific data about how they are performing in both fluency and comprehension. This is the point at which you should check initial placement to see whether adjustments to the initial level and goal are needed.  Read more

We recently rolled out one of our most exciting Read Live innovations to date: Independent Placement! This feature allows newly enrolled Read Live students to complete the placement process independently--saving teachers valuable time! Independent Placement uses speech recognition technology to analyze students' fluency as they read placement stories. Based on this data, the program assigns students an appropriate level and goal so they can begin working in Read Live as efficiently as possible. If you intend to take advantage of this amazing new feature, here are some tips: Read more

Comprehension gives the act of reading a purpose and opens the door to enjoyment of reading. Indeed, deriving meaning from text is why we bother reading at all! Yet comprehension can be a struggle for any student, but often it’s especially challenging for multilingual students. What can we do to set them up for success in Read Naturally Live and Read Naturally Live—Español? Read more

The start of the school year is all about getting to know your new students—their personalities, their interests, and their individual needs. Determining which students need extra support in reading, and what that support should look like, are some of the most important decisions you’ll make this year. Thankfully, we’re here to help. Educators can choose from a number of reputable assessments to screen for reading concerns. From there, Read Naturally can help you interpret the data and choose the appropriate intervention. Read more

​In my last post, I shared the many assessment mistakes I’ve made over the years. Blunders aside, I actually love spring assessments for one simple reason. The spring assessment gives me an opportunity to show my students the big picture and remind them that the best reward of all is taking ownership of their own progress. This is usually just a short conversation, but it’s one of the most important talks I will have with them. Read more

​Is it really assessment season again? It feels like yesterday that I opened the lab at this new school, met my students, and screened them for reading difficulties using benchmark assessment. The winter assessment window seemed to arrive just a short time after that. And now it’s springtime already, and spring assessment window is almost here. It is time to prepare to assess the students yet again. Read more

In order to know whether a student has made enough progress to exit a Read Naturally program, you need to assess the student with grade-level material. It is important to celebrate your student’s daily growth from cold to hot timings in a story, the student’s goal being increased and the student moving up a level. It is also exciting to see a student’s cold-timing scores increase from story to story. These are all indications that the student’s reading skills are improving and that he or she is making progress in the program. But it is essential to keep the long-term goal in mind. Read more

Read Naturally founder Candyce Ihnot likes to tell the story of a little boy who went from struggling to fluent using the Read Naturally program. When Candyce asked the boy how he got to be such a good reader, he said with a smirk, “It was nothing you did.” Rather than be offended by his brutal honesty, Candyce was delighted. The boy was taking due credit for his own accomplishment. He had come to understand that he’d possessed the tools for success all along. Having found the confidence and fortitude to master a huge challenge, he could now draw on those qualities again and again—without his teacher’s help. Read more

Our teacher’s manuals are packed full of useful information about how to implement our programs effectively. They’re extraordinarily well researched and include hundreds of helpful suggestions. Have you read them recently? Cover to cover?

Don’t worry if the answer is no. We know how busy teachers are, and we want to make it easy on you to implement our programs with fidelity. That’s why we’ve created Fidelity Checklists. Download as many as you’d like—they’re free on our website! Read more